She’s a scrimshaw shipwith her tail uptippedout one sideand her black beak a compass that points toward her hope.

She blinks like me:irregularlyas this momentshe’s let me so close we are black eye to blue.

On an outbreath she’ll flyin one flick of that eye —but this secondkeeps watch with the westering sun, and the moon

as she rises on time,climbs over the lime —the lonesomestcumulus puff in vast skies — just nest-sized.

Every time I look at this poem, I feel like it should feel awkward, with its bits of rhyme and all the connotations thereof. The thing is, it doesn’t. It works. It makes me smile and also opens a minor existential gulf beneath me. I have a huge soft spot for this poem.